Posts by Juan Inamillion

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Re: Horrible fascination

I've never known such excruciating or debilitating pain. And apparently mine wasn't that big - about 3mm according to the scan. A client of mine is a State Registered Nurse and she explained in GREAT detail about the process of passing a stone. First you start with a stone that, in my case, is 3mm. Then you send it down a long tube that's only 1mm wide by peristalsis...

I was hesitant about using 'giving birth' as a comparison but she said yes, that's not far off (different result - obvs)

Re: "Pete' has omitted some details...

Exactly. I'll never forget many years ago my then best friend at the age of about 16, getting locked into our rather small bathroom. He totally panicked and practically destroyed the room trying to get out. The lock was a simple slide bolt that was a little bit sticky...

Cracking one off

Many decades ago I was working for a drug research company. In the lab was a large extractor room, the fans were seriously strong. Even so, when the valve on a bottle of compressed ammonia refused to budge there weren't many takers for attempting to delicately 'tap it' open with a hammer...

Incidentally, a comment earlier about greasing the valve - IIRC depending on the contents of the cylinder grease is the LAST thing you want on the valve...

For what it's worth...

Admittedly I'm out of the mainstream of business IT these days. I have a selection of individuals and small business clients. But over the past 5 or so years I've seen the need for a small server solution disappear with the rise of adaptable and cheap NAS boxes. The mantra 'RAID is not a back up solution' may well be true to a professional, but for most people they see it as a cheap and easy form of data storage - fit and forget. Back up for the RAID often consists of a large capacity USB drive that someone takes home.

Whenever I can get them to discuss back up or cloud storage they quickly realise that having it all in the cloud is not a truly viable solution. In parts of the central and west end of London it's still not possible to get broadband speeds greater than 5 or 6 Mbps - the disgraceful legacy of underinvestment by the our useless government(s) and the lies put out by BT talking about 'superfast'. Telling clients that it'll take a two hours to download a single file is clearly not an option, let alone a complete back up.

For myself five years ago I bought a 2 bay NAS (Synology) to trial out at home. Starting out testing it as small file server and backup for my own computer, it's now central as media server and backup for all the computers in use in the house. And I'm not even using half of it's capability. It's getting a bit full now but upgrading the disks is simple and cheap.

Would listening to this help?

Thank you.

As biker for 40+ years I finally read an interesting, sensible and informative review of some bike accessories. A real rider who admits to not using (maybe not needing) all the bells and whistles available, simply loads up and rides out. Read the manual? WTF for!

Personally I usually like to ride 'voice free' (my girlfriend wouldn't appreciate this but she doesn't read El Reg). But with everyone on mobile phones and the burgeoning need to video one's progress in case of trouble, i'm bending toward equipping myself with something like this.

Exactly what I've done with our Virgin Media account. Fed up with the very poor range and constant dropouts I changed it to modem mode and attached a very nice TP-Link wireless 802.11ac router (great value at about £70).

School japes

Try magnesium powder and potassium permanganate...

Also for real adventure we'd make nitrogen triiodide (.880 ammonia and iodine crystals). Very very very nasty when dry... just about stable when wet.. Great to leave some to dry on filter paper with a bit of jam and wait for a fly to land.

Re: Er, that's actually a South Dakota/Minnesota billboard

Re: Road trip

I think Melbourne to Brissy is about 1200 miles.

Back when I were a hippy and newly arrived in God's Own Country (1969...) I hitched up and down the coast a bit. Mainly Sydney to Brisbane or the Gold Coast. Very very little traffic late at night but quite often weird and wonderful animals in the middle of the road just round the bend..

I'm sure I'm missing something...

Look, I understand that we all make mistakes. I also understand they're dealing with millions of people with varying degrees of web competence and requirements. But - and please don't flame me for possible ignorance - if the likes of Google, Amazon, ebay and Paypal can preserve logins, account details, editing and the like for MEELIONS of users, why can't the developers of HMRC's site do the same?

Up vote

Personal pr0n

Corporate pron is all very well and I've seen a bit (well, the directories you understand...) in various offices. But one instance that springs effortlessly to mind didn't involve a corp or, really speaking, pron.

My client was a semi-celebrity food doctor who ran his business from a home office with 2 staff. One time I was booked in to upgrade his system and applications, all on his MacBook Pro. Everything went fine and as I nearly finished he came in and asked how it was going and to make sure his large iPhoto collection was ok. I assured him all was well and to demonstrate opened iPhoto. As the library update bar nudged it's way across the screen I explained that the library was being updated to the latest version. As it completed the photo that came up full screen was of his naked wife spread-eagled on a blanket...

Luckily I have very quick reflexes and with my hands hovering over the keyboard I managed to close the window super quick... I think we both knew what happened but I glossed over it by saying 'and of course your email will be updated in a similar fashion...'

Tommy Blake

Truly an epic song as true today as it was back then! A most excellent find El Reg.

Considering how aggressive and devious the PRS has been pursuing small business' with regard to 'music in the workplace', I'm amazed that their turnover is 'only' £73.9m. And, considering they're really only a collection agency, that CEO's pay-packet is obscene.

A right giggle

Actually I almost spat out a mouthful of mixed nuts at "...and Kanye West plays with himself." Didn't see that coming <fnarr>.

Superb article.

As someone who for most of his life worked in the music biz I really identified with all that rhetoric. And I learned all about Blumlein and his techniques when I had my first tape recorder at 14 years old... <sigh>

Re: NSFW

Re: The real WTF...

In a previous existence, while in the middle of a relationship break-up that involved joint ownership of a house, my (now) ex's accountants sent me a spreadsheet with THEIR idea of the 'split' of the money and ownership.

Sadly (for them and her) they sent me a workbook, which had all their notes, comments and calculations on the other pages....

Quite amazed...

...to see so many negative posts about ebuyer, though admittedly I've never had cause to look for any before now.

I've used them for probably 90 % of my orders (freelance IT support) over the past 10 years and I can' remember a problem with the company. I think I've had a couple of returns but no problem dealing with them either. In fact I've just had a look and find the last problem was only 1 of 2 items ordered arriving. This was sorted within a week with them apologising and sending out the missing one. That was in Feb 2009...

As for DABS... My only recent experience (haven't used them for years) was a client ordering 4 4TB WD Enterprise class drives from them. They arrived not terribly well packed with one drive packed quite differently from the others. Within a week 1 failed, within another 2 weeks another failed. Trying to get them replaced has proved a nightmare. I considered the first failure to effectively be DOA but they refused to accept this.

Lovely idea, very altruistic.

As others have said here I'm sure 'ISPCorp' NY will have something to say about free wifi being available in all those subscriber areas.

Meanwhile, back in the UK... BT (for it is they) have plans to rip out the remaining phone boxes and install 'wifi stations', which will be range-limited to 1 metre and bandwidth limited to 2Mbps - inline with the 'Superfast' national broadband average that us Brits enjoy.

Oh and access will be limited to 10 minute stretches with an hour in between logins. Unless of course you sign up and pay for the BT 'Maxiwifi' ™ service, which will allow you to log on for 30 minutes at a time for just £14.99 per month (landline required).

Maybe they should convert those SuperLoos you see around the West End of London. At least then you could have a emergency five knuckle shuffle while perusing a jazz site (before the door automatically opens of course...)

Re: I'm a techno luddite

One of the best scanners I've come across was recommended to me by a production staffer working for one of the biggest magazine publishers in Europe. The Epson 4990 is a flatbed and negative scanner and, before anyone says anything, the results of negative scanning outperform most dedicated film scanners (other that those costing thousands of course). It has a Dmax of 4.

I bought mine on ebay - complete with the original box and all the film masks. Apparently there's quite a trade in buying them to scan in whole negative collections then selling it back on ebay for the same money!

Really really easy to use. If you can find one you should seriously consider it.

Re: @Reg Number of electrons != current

Re: First iPhone late

Oh I don't know... Many years ago I had a Motorola TAC flip phone, one of the early ones. It was in it's holder on my belt (oh yes really! Remember when we did that!) and it fell out while on my GSXR-750 travelling from Shepperton studios to a nearby pub for lunch. I didn't know until I'd got there. I went back along the country lane and found it, albeit in a couple of bits, but I even found the spring for the flip. My electronics engineer mate put it back together for me and it worked perfectly for the next year or two!

For as long as I can remember (and I am quite old) and because I once had aspirations to forge a career in science, the term 'boffin' has always been an affectionate one aimed specifically at the truly clever-clogs what can do hard sums and stuff, like Lewis says...

Only a couple of years ago (I see it's free now) I stayed several times at the Holiday Inn Express in Peterborough (work reasons - definitely not for anything else!). I asked about internet access and they quoted £15 PER HOUR for 'full access'. When my jaw hit the floor the manager then said well if I only wanted to check email I could have their reduced service for £12 PER HOUR. I pointed out that I didn't even pay either of those sums PER MONTH at home but it made no difference...

Re: Brit adventurer?

Have you ever been in a serious storm at sea? You can tie things down as much as you like but if the elements want to rip it away there's very little to stop it. You really have no idea of the power until you're in the middle of it...shitting yourself....

I'd say the 60 day goal was a target rather than an objective (pedant alert), probably ambitious knowing the records were well short of that, but you can't blame someone for not trying!

Sadly London is unique

And historically speaking, held to ransom by black cabs. I've lived here for nearly 40 years and I've learned to avoid using black cabs whenever possible. Yes, there are a lot of nice cab drivers out there, but I cannot stand the back-breaking discomfort of those older cabs, plus getting thrown around, not being able to see through the misted up windows...

That's even before we talk about the cost. For me the killer blow was the rise in fares after 20.00, Boris's Big Idea to get more cabs out and about in the evening. Can someone explain the logic?

Quite honestly I've never had a problem with a mini cab driver, with or without satnav. Strange I note some down votes on Addison Lee, personally never once had a problem. Clean, recent model cars or MPV's, clean well-dressed and pleasant drivers. GLH is another excellent London-wide company.

As several others here have said, the cabbies have seriously shot themselves in both feet by this action, but the real problem is that it's London's problem and the law needs to be changed. There's plenty of room for all these cabs and the black cabs would still have the advantage of kerbside hailing.

I signed up to Zipcar (car club) about 2 years ago. Totally brilliant, I've rented several. On one occasion I rented a car to pick someone up from Kings Cross to bring back to Chelsea. 1.5 hours - it cost me £9.00. No contest as far as I'm concerned!! Another time delivering 3 computers round west london, took 3 hours - £18.00. No congestion charge, fuel included.

This explains it

Same old same old

Every so often over the years an 'analyst' has come along and said "Apple needs to produce a cheap computer/laptop/whatever to dominate the lower end of the market". Apple have always said (to my knowledge) that they're not interested in knocking out cheap products.

I think a look at Apple's product line and bottom line over the years tells the whole story really.

Breathtaking

"His mere distaste for Jobs is not the main reason for his divestment of his Apple shares. In fact, if Jobs were still around – he died two years ago last Saturday – Robertson would forgive his faults and stay invested in the iDevice maker.

"I think if he were still there, I'd still be in it," Robertson said of his investment in Apple. "I think he's one of the great geniuses of the world.""

Absolutely breathtaking hypocrisy.

Still, what else should we expect? Everyone seems to have forgotten that share dealing arose to provide pooled capital to finance a company in it's ventures. Needless to say this somewhat altruistic notion has been turned on it's head by the likes of Robertson and his ilk, who simply see the market as a gambling machine to make money (and lots of it).

Re: How to make a big company pay their debts on time

A friend of mine in the music business (he ran a studio) used this method against Sony UK. I can't remember the size of the invoice - about £1,000 I think - He delivered the statutory notice and carefully pointed out that if they still didn't pay he had lawyers ready to ensure they cease trading.... Worked a treat!